HENRY-POTTS MISSION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2955, 2 November 1910, Page 53

HENRY-POTTS MISSION.

THE WAIHI EPISODE. (Pkk United Press Association.) WANGANUI, October 24. In reference to the telegram from Waihi reiterating the statements made by a local paper in a condensed report of the missioner's concluding address in that town, the Chronicle reporter tonight interviewed Dr Henry, who said he had already given his answer and was not prepared to enter into further con troversy. His reply, as previously given, was that the newspaper report was distorted and fundamentally untrue. For example, the statement was made that there were about 100 confessions of faith during the mission, whereas there were nearly, if not quite. 300. -"Then," said Dr Henry, "I am credited with using the word 'skunk'—a word 1 have never used in the pulpit in my 30 years' ministry. What I did say was this (speaking _of people who were dying in Ocwards' Castle) : ' You men don't have the moral courage of your convictions, and are afraid to facy either the truth or Jesus Christ. You are skulking behind the Cross like spirtuaJ shirks.' In referring to the matter of moral courage, I used an illustration from Dr Torrey's work in China, when, after delivering an address on how to become a child of God, he concluded by saying that every man was either a child of God or a' child of the devil, and that we are not children of the devil first by choosing and then ■by confessing Christ. -At the close of his message 150 Chinamen went into the inquiry room, and Dr Torrey through an interpreter asked them why they had come, to which they replied :' 'We have come to show our confession of Christ, that we are children of God, and not the children of the devil.' Then I said: ' You men who have heard the word proclaimed during the mission, but who have refused to be true, have not as much moral courage as those heathen Chinamen.' " This, it will be seen, is entirely different from the statement wired from Waihi that Dr Henry had declared the people to be " spiritual skunks without the courage of Chinamen."